“I’d suggest,” said Partridge, “that Guy and Skeet get together and go over the list and see what can be done in the way you suggest, Toby. As I said before, I’ll try anything anyone wants me to. Anything, that is, except the pole-vault. I don’t want to break my neck!”
“There are about ten fellows trying for the sprints,” said Lanny. “We don’t need more than half of them. Why can’t some of them be turned into hurdlers, Guy? Any fellow who can do the hundred on the flat can do it over the sticks if he’s once shown how.”
“Sure he can,” agreed Harry. “Call a meeting of the candidates, Guy, and tell each one what’s expected of him. Don’t just say, ‘Will you do this?’ but tell ’em they’ve got to! Get Toby to talk to ’em and put some pep in ’em. Make ’em understand that we’ve got to lick Springdale next month and that——”
“The trouble is,” interrupted Lanny, “that the fellows don’t take track athletics seriously. It’s got to be sort of the style to smile when you mention the subject. We’ve run so to football and baseball that we don’t think anything else is worth while. Even the fellows who are on the team go around with a half-apologetic grin, as much as to say, ‘I’m on the Track Team. Isn’t it a joke?’ What ought to be done in this school is to get track athletics back where they belong as a major sport.”
“And the best way to do that,” said Sears, “is to everlastingly wallop Springdale.”
“Yes, but——”
“I think there ought to be more incentive for fellows to come out for the team,” said Harry Partridge. “Of course, if a chap is fond of running or jumping or hurdling he’s going to do it without persuasion, but there are lots of fellows, I guess, who have the making of good track or field men who don’t realize it and don’t think about it. Of course, it’s too late this year, but next——”
“Well, it’s this year that’s worrying me,” broke in Guy. “Whoever comes after me can bother about next year.”
“Still,” said Sears earnestly, “we’ve got to work for the future as well as the present; or we should anyway. I’ve sometimes wondered if we couldn’t enlarge the interest by holding a meet about the middle of the season, a handicap meet between classes. Once get a fellow interested and if he has anything in him he wants to get it out. And so he keeps on.”
“That’s a good scheme,” agreed Guy. “Funny we’ve never thought of it. But it’s too late for this spring. What we might do, though, is to hold an open meet and work up some enthusiasm that way. It would be a good thing, anyway, for the team.”